Edge of Seventeen
by lavenderrosepetals
Summary: Time heals all wounds, right? Well, maybe not for Raven. After defeating Trigon, everything was supposed to go back to normal. As time progresses, though, Raven declines. This is the story of Raven's fall from grace as she deals with her emotions from defeating her demonic father. (Rated T for the appearance of alcohol and bad people.)
1. Chapter 1

_The following is a story about Raven's battles after defeating Trigon. She spirals into a depressive episode unlike any she has had before. She begins having panic attacks, cutting, drinking, and almost has sex with a scuzzy bartender before her teammates charge in and save her. Her team can only save her from a moment though, and Raven realizes that it is up to her to really save herself. She uses her friends as the base of her recovery, a support system full of love and hope._

 _As always, I mess around with their ages and minor details. I haven't watched the series in a while, so please excuse and roll with anything I have altered._

 _Here's how I picture the Titans in my brain for this story:_

 _I LOVE switching around the Titan's ages, and in my Midnight Girl series (in which I obsessively write about Raven), I decided that she gets to be the baby, because how adorable is feisty, independent, badass baby-of-the-family Raven?_

 _Raven- 17, almost 18_

 _Changeling- 19_

 _Starfire- Who knows? They track age differently on Tameran (as decided by me) The Titans and Star decided she's probably between Robin and Gar, so 19 and some, maybe 20. Not that she cares, really._

 _Robin- 21_

 _Cyborg- 22_

 _As far as their aged appearances, I'm sure they haven't changed all that much. Probably Changeling hit a growth spurt overnight and I like to imagine that he's got a few inches on Robin. Also, let's give him a fohawk. And he's definitely filled out muscle wise, as well as Robin and Starfire. Cy and Star are pretty much the same, but I like to think that Starfire switched out her girly skirt for a more practical set of shorts. As far as Robin goes, I'm keeping his name Robin because the name Nightwing and Dick bother me, but I think he's altered his costume to the Nightwing model because who wants to look like a traffic light when you're trying to pick up girls?_

 _Anyway, enjoy!_

Chapter One

Haunted Dreams

The sky burned. Her skin burned. Red glyphs swirled and formed around her in the air before clinging to her skin, burning themselves into her very being. The tighter Slade wrapped his hands around her arms, the hotter the red glyphs burned into her skin.

"Accept and bow down, Raven. This is your destiny."

"No!"

Slade laughed, and Raven heard the echoes of her father's voice laughing with him as he threw Raven to the ground and climbed on top of her.

Raven screamed as pain took hold of her entire body, she could hear them laughing. Slade. Trigon. His followers. Laughing at her humiliation and pain.

Raven realized her screams were real when she awoke in her dark bedroom, tangled in her sheets, thrashing and shouting at the dark of early morning. She clamped her mouth shut tightly and pulled a pillow over her head, forcing her breath to slow down.

"Ground yourself, Raven," she muttered, her voice shaking with the memory of her latest nightmarish recollection of the lead up to her seventeenth birthday.

Her breath slowed as she silently chanted her mantras, focusing on the here and now. Even her mantras could not shake the feeling of complete isolation, though, and with a frustrated growl, Raven threw her legs over the side of her bed and pulled her cloak towards her. The sight of it's deep purple color irritated her further, though, drawing forth more memories of the many cloaks destroyed in the fight to save the earth and her friends.

Growing more restless by the minute, Raven settled on street clothes, which she rarely wore; she had to rifle through several compartments of her wardrobe before finding a pair of leggings and an oversized black sweater. Satisfied with her comforting look, Raven ran her fingers through her tangled hair and slowly padded down to the main lounge and kitchen, her thoughts on what type of tea she could drink to help soothe her frazzled nerves.

She took a deep breath, put on her most neutral Raven face, and lightly strode through the heavy doors and into the Titans' lounge.

As she had expected, the team had already emerged from their rooms. BB and Cyborg already sat on the couch, arguing about which video game to play, Starfire sat cross-legged on the floor, trying to train Sylkie to do back flips, and Robin sat on his laptop at the kitchen table, brows knit together as he read up on Azar knows what.

Although no one looked at her when she entered the room, pausing for only a moment to assess its inhabitants, the empath could feel that the air was tense, as if her teammates and adopted family were trying to hide something from her. She ignored it. If they wanted to talk to her, they would.

Robin glanced up from his work when Raven entered the kitchen. He tried to hide his surprise at her casual wear, but Raven noticed. She again chose to ignore it.

"Raven."

"Robin."

"Make me a cup?"

Raven paused near her tea kettle, fighting the emotions that had started to rise. Tea, normally a comfort and joy to drink, brought a distaste to her mouth.

"Actually," she said slowly, "I'm having coffee this morning. Would you like one?"

This time, Robin could not hide his surprise, and, Raven noticed immediately, neither could the team, who now stared openly, mouths dropped in shock. Again, Raven chose to ignore it, which only shocked them further.

"Oh. Uh. Yeah, Raven. Yeah I'll take a coffee."

Cyborg tried to cover his stares, "Yo, Rae. Make me one too?"

"I too will partake in the ceremonial coffee drink!"

Garfield still stared at Raven, and only once Cyborg smacked him on the back of the head did he try to cover it up, "Yeah! Only no milk products in mine. I'll use soy milk. And four spoons, no. Five spoons of sugar!" He paused as Raven quirked an eyebrow at him, "Uh, please?" He finished lamely.

Raven set to work, meticulously brewing the coffee and tailoring each one to suit her team. She finished up and sat at the table, where everyone had now gathered, another rarity for her. Old Raven would have sat in the armchair away from the gathering. New Raven looked pointedly at Garfield until Cyborg shoved him over on the bench to make room for one more person to sit.

They sipped their coffees quietly, all lost in thought. Raven gently let out her empathetic feelers. She could sense their obvious confusion, mingled with relief of her normalcy and an obvious distrust for it.

"So," Raven broke the silence, her quiet, boyish voice cutting through the unsure atmosphere. "Any plans for the day?"

"Yeah dude! Me and Cy are trying out this new game called 'Revenge of the Zombie Man-Eaters' where—"

"Gar, no. We're not. We're trying MY new game."

The two started back into their earlier argument, throwing insults and facts about their chosen games back and forth.

"I am trying to train Sylkie to do the tricks, although he much prefers eating the treats to playing dead…" Starfire trailed off, staring sullenly at the obese creature gnawing on the bag on treats she had tried to use as motivation.

Robin took the opportunity to ask a casual question, "You know me, I'm always working. How'd you sleep last night?"

The air paused again, and Raven knew that they knew, which embarrassed her to no end; it was one thing to be youngest, and another to be the dark one, and a whole other thing to be the young, dark, scared one. She paused her breathing and let her empathetic knowledge further feel out her teammate. Raven focused on casually bringing her coffee mug to her lips, letting the still scalding liquid sting her mouth.

"Fine. You?"

"Hm," Robin grunted, "Fine. A little restless. I kept thinking I could hear someone crying. It was odd."

Starfire interjected, "I too slept not so well last night. Something seemed to keep me up as well."

Garfield paused mid-drink and looked from Robin to Raven, who had not yet broken eye contact.

Raven's eyes finally fell to the table. She set her mug down and pulled her slender hands into her lap. Without looking up, she whispered, "What do you want from me, Robin?"

Robin set his coffee down, too, "Raven, I don't want anything from you. We," he motioned to their teammates, who were frozen with anticipation, "Care about you."

Raven hunched over, almost unconsciously.

Robin reached his hand across the table, and when he spoke, his voiced mirrored Raven's own hushed tone, "Your eighteenth birthday is this week, Raven. I didn't forget."

"How could you," Raven hissed, causing Robin to retract his offered hand, "I destroyed the world this time last year. Because of me you all almost died. Because of me Slade came back. Our city, our home, was ruined. Because of my birthday," her voice rose in volume and she stood suddenly, sending her chair crashing to the floor. The five mugs of coffee at the table shattered, splattering the Titan's with the still warm liquid and causing Starfire to yelp with surprise. "Because I was so unfortunate to have been born, you all now have to suffer for it!"

Before anyone could say anything, Raven whirled away from the table and disappeared through a portal, leaving smashed ceramic mugs and spilled coffee in her wake.

Robin sighed and stood to get a towel.

"Man, why'd you do that here?" Cyborg shook coffee off of his metal hand. "That was 14 year old Beast Boy levels of stupid."

"Aw, man! I was 14! Gimme a break!" Garfield rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"I hoped talking about it casually would work."

"I do not believe that your chosen form of communication was casual."

Robin sighed, "Thank you, Star."

"Perhaps I should go see if she is okay?"  
Cyborg shook his head, "No. She could be anywhere, besides, you know Raven. She needs to be alone."


	2. Chapter 2

Raven sunk to her knees and stared out at the crashing ocean waves. The sun had not made its' appearance yet, and the thick clouds teased the earth with a light mist of rain.

"I'm so alone," she whispered to the sand.

Raven stayed, in the cold sand, hands lying dead in her lap, until the sun disappeared entirely behind the clouds, which opened up and sent water hurling down towards the earth. She barely felt the cold drops pelt her skin, and only moved when the tide rose so high on the beach that small, angry waves lapped onto her legs.

She rose stiffly, her bare feet numb with cold, and stared for a moment out at the reeling waves. Rain pelted her face when she looked up, and she imagined that it had enough momentum and force to strip away her outer layers of skin. Something clicked internally as the empath held her slender arms out in front of her and watched the clean water drip off of her.

With an incredibly un-Raven-esque giggle, she flew up above the water and past the shallow sandbar, out to where the water was deep, and the waves were forming but not crashing. She took a deep breath, turned her body down, and let go of her hold on her flight. Raven plummeted down and crashed into the water with a splash. Momentarily, she felt stunned by the frigid salt water around her, and she let out all of her breath at once, but caught herself before she inhaled again. Her eyes popped open, burning from the salt in the water, and she realized that she could not tell which way was up in the dark murky ocean. Beginning to panic, Raven thrust her hands downward and watched the way the bubbles floated. She let out a surge of energy and shot upwards, inhaling deeply as she broke through the surface. She flew up into the air and spun around in circle, sending droplets of water flinging from her clothes and her hair.

As she landed back on the beach lightly, her communicator buzzed. Frowning at the disturbance, she flipped it open and saw a message from Robin, "Are you coming back soon? We should talk."

Her frown deepened. Having her friends worry about her was too much. She already felt bad enough about nearly destroying them and their world. She needed no sympathy or concerns from them; it only helped make her feel worse.

The tech in her hand buzzed again. Robin had sent another message. This one read, "Star and Cy are worried. I am too. Gar wants to look for you. He's heading out if no sign of you by dinner."

Raven rolled her eyes. "Way to lay it on thick, Boy Blunder," she muttered, typing back a one worded response.

Raven walked back to the Tower. She had no energy to summon a portal, no need to rush back to her dark room, to the ever present company of her team that made her feel so alone. Despite the heaviness of her thoughts, her heart felt lighter than it had in months. She hoped that her recent nightmares would now wane, letting her gain a full night's sleep and getting her friends-namely Robin- off of her back.

As she made the long trek, her mind drifted back to the first few weeks after she had defeated Trigon. Things settled more quickly back into a pattern than she thought they would. Every morning, she still emerged after Robin to make her tea. Changeling and Cyborg still argued over video games she felt they were too old for, and Starfire still tried to get her to go shopping and change out of her uniform every once in a while.

Raven felt odd, though. She felt as though her emotions were both less and more stable than ever. When she smiled, or frowned, her facial muscles seemed to move because her subconscious knew that smiling or frowning was the appropriate thing to do. As the weeks passed, rather than feel better, Raven began to feel worse. She shut down her emotions when they acted up, choosing to ignore Sadness, Rage, and any of the others that made an appearance. She stopped hearing from Happy altogether. Eventually, after seven months, she stopped using her mirror to meditate altogether. The last trip she took into her deep mind had been almost five months ago, and now that so much time had passed, the thought of delving that deep into herself caused waves of panic to rush through her body and mind.

To keep her friends happy, though, Raven used her energy to maintain normality.

Robin had opened his communicator for the third time and typed out another message when it buzzed. Raven had sent a response. One word lit his screen: "Fine."

He let out a sigh of relief at the obviously annoyed tone. He knew Raven well enough to know what a one worded message meant. She spoke less often than the others, and she chose her words carefully, yes, but she rarely used ambiguosity when answering that many inquiries.

Starfire flew to his side, "Raven has sent you a message?"

Robin flipped his communicator shut and stood, "She's on her way back. She should be here soon."

Changeling crossed his arms over his chest and scowled, "If she said she was on her way, then she should be here by now. She can teleport."

Cyborg shrugged, flipping open his latest car magazine and sitting back on the couch, "Maybe she's flying. Teleportation takes energy."

Knowing that his "adopted little sis," as Cyborg fondly referred to her, was on her way and okay for the moment, his worries had lessened. Like Robin, though, the older Titan still felt the gnawing anxiety about Raven's seemingly more frequent night-terrors.

Changeling sighed, "C'mon, Star, let's make spaghetti for dinner."

Starfire clapped, "Yes! Raven loves the carbohydrates! I will fetch the red-fruit sauce!"

Raven's lone figure floated across the water rather than cross through the tunnel to get to the Tower. She landed lightly on the rooftop and looked out across the unsettled bay water, her mind drifting back to the dive she had taken earlier. She sighed, content for the moment-even in her sopping wet and chilled clothing-and trot down the stairway and corridor to enter the common room.

Her steps slowed as she drew nearer, though, as the empath picked up on the apparent chaos waiting behind the closed doors. Cautiously, Raven phased through the doors to see what awaited her.

Changeling and Robin were in each others faces, shouting. Cyborg was also shouting, although he seemed more concerned with how it was possible to catch a pot of pasta on fire. Starfire tried to keep Changeling and Robin separated, talking loudly of how both young men could be correct and she was sure they would find a solution if only they would stop fighting.

"I'm going, Robin! You can't stop me!"

"Changeling! I already said that Raven is on her way. Let it go and clean up the kitchen!"

"Starfire caught it on fire! Make her clean it up. I'm. Going. To. Find. Raven. So. Move!"

Raven sighed and her monotone cut through the chaos as she said, "Congratulations, Gar. You found me."

"Raven!" Changeling and Starfire shouted happily.

Robin sighed, hoping that his team would calm down now that they were reunited in the Tower.

Raven shrugged at their enthusiasm and swept past them into the kitchen. She had started shivering and wanted nothing more than a cup of steaming hot tea.

"What took you so long?" Changeling asked, following at a distance.

"Are you wet, friend? Did it rain upon you as you flew back?" Starfire tried to ask at the same time.

Robin walked quickly to catch up to dripping wet empath and ask his own questions. "Where were you?"

Raven stayed silent until she had filled the kettle, picked her tea and mug, and gotted the stove turned on. She turned away from her slowly boiling water and leaned against the counter, arms crossed. "I went to the ocean- the beach. It started raining and," she paused, hesitant to share her experience as she feared it would only cause more questions, "It rained, and I walked home," she finished lamely, turning back towards her tea.

Behind her back, Robin motioned for everyone to back off, and they did, going back to their games and magazines.

"It must have rained pretty hard. You're puddling on the floor," Robin couldn't help but chuckle.

Raven looked at her feet, "Hm. Yes, I suppose I should go change."

He noticed her look longingly at the almost-to-temperature water. "Go change. I'll finish making your tea."

Raven offered a hesitant smile and dropped through a portal. She changed quickly into thick leggings and a simple black shirt. She even pulled out the matching floor length midnight blue robe and slippers set that the Titans had gifted her their first Christmas together. While she had not worn it up until this point, the robe had hung in her closet and she often ran her hand over the fine fabric to remind herself that she had people who cared for her.

As Raven walked back to the kitchen, her robe swishing around her light tread, she thought back to the Christmas that she had been gifted the robe-

While the other Titans decorated, sung carols, and threw snowballs at each other, Raven remained just as distant, if not more, as the holiday drew closer. Finally, Changeling-who at that time went by Beast Boy- cornered her.

"Raven! What's your deal?"

"What?" Raven barely glanced up from her book. She assumed what the green teenager meant, but chose to feign annoyed innocence.

He crossed his arms and huffed, still leaning over where she had wrapped herself in her favorite armchair. "All month you've been a grump. Starfire has tried to get you to help out with shopping and decorating and Cy even made you your own Christmas cookies and you're just being mean to everyone!"

Raven faltered. The last thing she wanted was for her new-found friends to think of her as mean. Distant, yes. Mysterious, sure. Not mean, though. She closed her book, drawing it to her chest, and glanced away from his glower. "I don't know what you mean, Beast Boy."

She had meant for her words to be terse, but instead they sounded unsure. Beast Boy seemed to sense that and took a step back, his gaze softening. "Rae, we just want you to celebrate our first holiday with us."

"Two syllables."

His brow creased, "What?"

"Rae-Ven. My name is two syllables. Not one." Raven stood and swept past her teammate towards the door.

"You can't just change the subject! Come back and talk to me!"

Raven ignored him, continuing quickly toward her exit.

Before she could escape, Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire piled into the room, each carrying bags and wearing Santa hats.

"Fa-la-la-la-laaa!" They finished singing together, laughing at their off tune singing.

"Friend Raven!" Starfire floated in front of the startled empath and held out a hat, "Join us in our merriment! We have enough festive hats and houses of the ginger cookie for everyone!"

Raven hesitated, but before she could answer, Beast Boy cut in.

"Don't bother, Star, Rae- _ven,_ " he put extra emphasis on the last part of her name, "Doesn't like fun."

Starfire's joyful smile faltered and she glanced at Robin for reassurance. He stepped forward and set the bags he held down.

"Everything okay, Raven? Why don't you want to celebrate?"

"Yeah, everybody loves Christmas!" Cyborg added, moving towards the kitchen to set up their gingerbread project.

"Tomorrow's Christmas Eve! You don't wanna be a Grinch on Christmas Eve Eve!" Beast Boy waggled his eyebrows and help out a Santa hat.

Raven had enough at this point. The decorations, the constant singing, the pressure to take part in their useless holiday that they had no business pushing on her. She exploded.

"I said no!" She shouted. In the kitchen a light bulb exploded and Cyborg yelped with surprise as the gingerbread pieces he had set out all cracked in half. "I don't celebrate this pointless human holiday and I don't need you pushing it on me every chance you get!" Her hair swirled around her head as she tried to reign in her emotions and the Santa hat in Beast Boy's hands shredded.

"Okay," Robin quickly intervened, before things got messier. "Raven, if you don't want to be part of the holiday, we won't pressure you."

She nodded once and disappeared.

Beast Boy made an annoyed sound and tossed the remains of his Santa hat into the garbage. "Why won't she have fun?"

"Look," Cyborg threw a new hat at his dejected friend, "Just 'cause Raven doesn't want to be part of Christmas, doesn't mean that we can't have fun with it. So let's get on our hats, crank up the Jingle Bell Rock, and make us some gingerbread houses!"

Two hours into their failed attempts at gingerbread house making, Cyborg decided he'd had enough.

"That's it! We've been going at this for two hours and I can't take it anymore! Forget it!" He stood and pulled all of the crumbled cookie and half ruined candy toppings into his arms then tossed it into the trash.

"Then our Christmas holiday is ruined?" Starfire asked, eyes brimming with tears.

"Maybe not," a gravelly voice said from the kitchen entryway.

The Titan's turned, shocked to see the gingerbread pieces levitating above the trashcan, surrounded in familiar black colored magic.

"Raven! You have returned to our festivities!" Starfire lurched into the air, twirling with joy.

"I thought you could use some help when I heard Cyborg shouting about icing earlier."

Beast Boy pouted, "You coulda come sooner. That was like an hour ago."

"I'm here now. And I had a thought, instead of trying to build fantasy homes for tiny ginger men, what if we tried something else?"

"We're listening…" Beast Boy leaned forward anxious to hear her plan.

Soon after the team set their gingerbread plan in stone, they were able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Raven had proposed building one home rather than many, and soon, the Ginger "T" Tower was born. She set Starfire on making gingerbread men figures to look like each Titan, and even had Cyborg pull together a tiny string of lights to hang on the three foot tall ginger- tower.

"Well, Titans, I'd say we handled that mission quite nicely." Robin kicked his feet up on the table and sipped from a mug of hot cocoa.

"What's your favorite holiday tradition, Robin?" Starfire asked as she added mustard to her own cocoa.

Robin made a face at the concoction before answering, "I don't know. The tree, I guess. What about you Cyborg?"

"Oh, I think we all know what mine is, right B?"

"Oh yeah!" Beast Boy leapt up to high five Cyborg as they both shouted, "Presents!"

"I have never partaken in the holiday gift giving, but presents are indeed my favorite! What present did you get that you loved most, Beast Boy?"

The green-teen tapped his fingers on his chin for a moment before his eyes lit up, "Oh I know! One time, I got this stuffed monkey from my parents. The whole day my Dad would hide him in different places in the tree and I'd have to find him." He smiled at the memory.

"I think my favorite gift was my first gaming laptop. Man, I took that thing apart and put it back together with some other parts, and, BAM. Best gaming system of the day." Cyborg grinned and turned to Robin, "What about you, Rob?"

"Titanium alloy cape. It's great at blocking debris and bullets." He thought for a moment before adding, "And fire."

"Oh how wonderful!" Starfire clapped her hands, "My kinorfka once gave me a green amulet from the star moons of the Gorfkarpa region. I wore it every day until my sister destroyed it. I do like to remember opening the gift, though."

Robin smiled and turned to the last member of the team, "What about you, Raven?"

She looked away, "I never got any Christmas presents."

"What about Birthday? Or any other holiday?" Beast Boy pressed, yearning to know more about the mysterious empath.

Raven stood, her hood lifting to shield her face as she withdrew from the room, "I've never received any presents. From anyone." And with that, she was gone, having returned to the shelter and safety of her dark room.

The next day, a lone figure emerged far too early from her room and left the Tower, heading towards Downtown Jump City.

Raven stayed away from the Tower all day. She let Robin know that she needed some time away from the intense festivities taking place in the Tower, and that she would keep an eye on her communicator if he needed her. When she returned later that night, long after the rest of her team had gone to bed, she held a bag full of wrapped gifts. Carefully, Raven lay out the pile of presents-one for each team member-and adjusted the tags. Before she left the room to go to bed, she glanced back at the tree

A note had been taped onto the package. Raven glanced both ways down the dark corridor and swiftly picked up the wrapped box and brought it into her room. She sat cross-legged on her bed and picked up the note. It read, "You may not celebrate the Holidays, but at least you can relax in comfort. We promise not to bug you… Too much. From, The Titans." Underneath, each member of the team had signed their name. Starfire had signed in pink and added little hearts next to her name. Robin had simply written an 'R.'

Raven's curiosity peaked and she pulled the paper off in one swift move and pulled the lid off of the box. Inside was a silk robe, a pair of matching slippers, and a book with a bookmark stuck in the pages. Raven smiled, set the box full of presents on the ground next to her bed, and curled up with her new book.

Raven shook her head at the memory. They had all been so much younger. How they had changed and grown-and learned- since then.

No one looked away from the movie they had on the TV when she entered the room. Robin had kept his promise and her tea waited on the counter in the now empty kitchen. Raven sighed and swept into the living room, knowing that her friends would be worried.

"May I join you?" She asked quietly, gazing down at her steaming mug of tea.

"Hell yeah!" Changeling shoved Starfire further away from him, she protested as she was rudely rammed into Robin's side, and giggled when he pulled her onto his lap. "You're just in time to catch the next episode of the four part series 'It Comes At Night!'"

Raven hesitantly moved to sit between Robin, who had shifted Starfire to his other side, and Changeling, who grinned hugely at her.

"Uh, thanks," she muttered, squeezing next to him and simultaneously trying to keep as much distance as possible between herself and her two friends.

Robin nodded hello and his eyes drifted back to the slasher movie.

Cyborg leaned forward so he could look at Raven, "You gonna be alright with this movie, Rave? Last horror movie we watched didn't go so well for you," he trailed off, remembering when Raven had inflicted a night of pure terror on the Titans after not admitting her fear caused by the horror flick Beast Boy had chosen.

She smiled wryly at him. "So long as I don't get too caught up in it, I'll be fine."

She was almost cut off by Changeling and Starfire's shrieks of terror as a masked man weilding a knife leapt on screen.

Raven rolled her eyes, "Besides, I have big, brave Garfield here to protect me."

Cyborg and Robin laughed and she smirked at her green friend, who had halfway hidden behind the edge of Raven's robe.


End file.
